626 

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K' 



THE HUN'S DIARY 



German Proofs ^ German Crimes 



translated (lom the origbal 
by 

PERCY S. BULLEN 

supplemented by reports 



of the official 

COMMISSIONS OF 



ENQUIRY 



appointed hy* France, Belgium 
and England. 




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THE HUN'S DIARY 

German Proofs if German Crimes 

translated from the original 
by 

PERCY S. BULLEN 

supplemented by reports 
of the ofiicial 

COMMISSIONS OF ENQUIRY 

appointed by" France, Belgium 
and England. 




Please address applications for this brochure to S. J. Clarke, Sales Agent, 
P.O. Box 1056, New York. 



.-^u 



L 






"HoTum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae" 

Caesar 



TO BRAVE BELGIUM 

Small in size, mighty^ in spirit, 

whose valiant people risked Death 

that honor might live; 

A dauntless barrier §f her Sons 

held back the invading tide. 

Rescued the sacred cause §f Christian Civilization 

and gave new birth 

to the 
Liberty gf Mankind. 

p. 5. B. 



Y 



MAR 12 1915 

)CI,A393947 



'4 




**A ^tvnp of fupn" 



(by the COUPTSSY of the "new YORK TRIBUNE') 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Frontispiece - ''A Scrap ofPaper" 

Facsimile of Jl 'Diary 

I. German Proofs if German Crimes - - - 1 

II. The Gospel gf Frightftilness - - - 5 

III. Arson, Pillage, Murder - - - - 15 

Official l^eports of France and Belgium 

IV. The Hun's Official Guidebook - . - 22 

V. The War Premeditated - - - - 26 

Kaiser's Speech in 1908 



GERMAN PROOFS of GERMAN CRIMES 



There are two topics regarding the Great War upon which the 
majority of Americans are now agreed. The first concerns the imme- 
diate responsibility for the catastrophe and the second the violation 
of Belgian and Luxemburg neutrality by Germany. The country has 
been flooded for months with reprints of the diplomatic documents 
and the arguments of both sides have been heard. He who runs may 
read the answer to the question, "Who desired the War?", and even 
the Germans themselves do not seriously contend that the solemn trea- 
ties which guaranteed the neutrality of "the little sister of the nations" 
were merely "scraps of paper." 

There is another question with which I now propose to deal, upon 
which the majority of Americans have preserved an open mind: Do 
the Germans in the field actually practice the Gospel of Frightfulness 
preached by some of their most notable leaders and actually enjoined in 
"The German War Book?" That is the question which I shall try 
to answer by the evidence of Germans themselves. 

Americans love fair play for all sides and they have done well to 
suspend their judgment on a question so vexed as German atrocities. 
Hate, hysteria and panic, one may argue, come so largely into play in 
the compilation of French and Belgian reports on the doings of the 
Germans in the field that you, with your memories of kind friends and 
agreeable holidays in Germany, are loath to convict. 

Moreover, have we not been assured on the evidence of eminent 
American newspaper correspondents personally conducted over the 
scenes of recent devastation by members, of the German military stafif, 
that they "personally have neither seen nor heard reliable evidence of 
outrages on the field" and reports from Germany, we know, bear con- 
stant testimony to the scientific care and provision made for the wounded 
of friend and foe alike. It is equally true that the Germans we meet 
in the United States are not less refined and humane in their instincts 
than the citizens who are unhyphenated and we would refuse, without 
abundant evidence, to impute to their brothers in the Fatherland a 
red record of murder and burnings and plunderings. 

Tt is my purpose to supply the evidence to which American readers 
are entitled and it will be found within the covers of this book. You 
have heard a great deal from the German professors since the war 
began. Hear now one from the other camp — a man of great distinction 
and unquestioned good faith — Professor Bedier, of the famous College 
de France. 



Article 75 of the German Field Service Regulations expressly en- 
joins soldiers to keep "war diaries." Professor Bedier has gathered 
about forty of a large number of these diaries taken from prisoners 
of war and published them in a brochure, "Les Crimes Allemands," 
pending the issue of the whole collection now being prepared by the 
Marquis de Dampierre. 

Professor Bedier applies to his task the same keen analytical 
methods and impartiality which in times of peace have served him so 
well in discussing the authority of an ancient document or the au- 
thenticity of a map. He is by no means related to the Yellow Jour- 
nalist. And he addresses himself in his little book to all comers — to 
belligerents as well as neutrals, to the German people as well as to 
Americans ; in fact, to quote his own words, to all those "with eyes 
to see and hearts to feel." 



FACSIMILES OF ORIGINALS. 

It is easy to accuse and difficult to prove. Professor Bedier rec- 
ognizes that axiom and the evidence he supplies comes not from the 
victims but from the pens of the actual men who perpetrated or as- 
sisted at the atrocities, approvingly or unwillingly, according to their 
natures. By means of extracts from diaries found on German prisoners 
of war by the French he unfolds a plain unvarnished tale of horror, a 
chronicle of foul deeds, on which the facsimile reproduction of many 
sets the seal of truth. These diaries, as the war progresses, become in- 
creasingly numerous. It is proposed that one day, for the edification of 
everyone, the entire collection shall be deposited in the German De- 
partment of Manuscripts at the Great National Library in Paris. 

Meantime, Professor Bedier takes some forty from the collection 
available— just by way of a beginning. THE FACSIMILES WHICH 
HE REPRODUCES IN HIS BOOK ARE INCONTESTED AND 
INCONTESTABLE. So much, at least, may be conceded. They are, 
after all, similar to the loose pages of other scribbled diaries chronicling, 
in faded pencilling, the daily routine of the German soldier's life, what 
he ate, how long he slept, how he and his comrades fought, picked 
up on many a bloodstained field. 

Professor Bedier prints in "Les Crimes Allemands," issued under 
the auspices of the French Committee of Publication dealing with War 
Documents and Studies, a dozen or more facsimiles of the diaries. 
The characteristic faults of spelling in some of the extracts as well 
as little colloquial phrases indicating the writer's native region in Ger- 
many do not permit ctf their veracity being questioned. One of the 
facsimiles which I have reproduced from Professor Bedier's interesting 
and important work — more important in America than anywhere else 
in the world, probably, because of the very active and well-organized 
German press propaganda in the United States — appears on a page 
following this. It is chosen at random and is a trifle more legible 
than the others. The writer of the diary, in this case, was Reservist 
Schlauter (3rd battery of the 4th Regiment of the Guards Field Ar- 
tillery). The German text and the English translation are given below 
the photogravure. 



In the compass of this little book I am unable to reproduce all the 
diaries quoted but to those who desire further details, I will say that an 
authorized English translation of Professor Bedier's work, which is 
printed by the Librairie Armand Colin, 103, Boulevard Sainte Michel, 
Paris, is now in the press and will soon be seen on the American book- 
stalls. THIS WILL GIVE THE ENTIRE COLLECTION FROM 
WHICH THE SAMPLE ON THE FOLLOWING PAGE IS TAKEN. 

I do not think the genuineness of the facsimiles, produced under the 
auspices of the French committee — ^all men of national reputation and 
of the most high-minded calibre — will be questioned by American citi- 
zens, hyphenated or otherwise, but if there should be any doubters, I 
would remind them that the ORIGINALS REMAIN IN SAFE CUS- 
TODY IN PARIS OPEN TO INSPECTION— and, I regret to add, 
very many more like them. 



Extract from the Diary of Private Schlauter, (3rd Battery, 4th Regt. 
of German Guards Field Artillery) reproduced here as a sample of all 
the facsimiles of "War Diaries" quoted by Professor Bedier in "Les 
Crimes AUemandes." 



(German Text.) 






'/k.*-*'^' 









"Aus der Stadt wurden 300 
erschossen. Die die Salve 
iiberlebten mussten Toten- 
graber sein. Das v^ar ein 
Anblick der Weiber; aber 
es geht nicht anders. Auf 
d e m Verfolgungsmarsch 
nach Wilot ging es besser. 
Die Einwohner, die verzie- 
hen wollten, konnten sich 
nach Wunsch ergeben, wo 
sie wollten. Aber der schoss, 
der wurde erschossen. Als 
wir aus Owele marschierten, 
knatterten die Gewehre: aber 
da gab es Feuer, Weiber, 
und Alles." 



(English Translation.) 



"Aug. 25 (in Belgium). Of the inhabitants of the town 300 were 
shot. Those who survived the volley were requisitioned as gravedig- 
gers. The women were a sight ! But it cannot be helped. Things went 
better on our march to Wilot: The inhabitants who wanted to leave 
were allowed to go where they desired. But those who fired at us were 
shot. As we were marching out of Owele rifles rang out, but there — 
there were fire, women and everything else." 



II.— THE GOSPEL OF FRIGHTFULNESS. 

It was Machiavelli who first preached the doctrine of "frightfulness" 
in war. Treitschke and Bernhardi were his modern disciples. That the 
Great General Staff of the German Army cannot be held guiltless as re- 
gards crimes committed by German soldiers in the present war is ap- 
parent to all who have studied "The German War Book" to which a 
more extended reference is made later in these pages. The "German 
War Book" gives the preceptj and this chapter will expose a few of its 
practitioners. The first war diary from which I will quote is that of a 
Berliner, Corporal Paul Spielman of the Reserve Battalion of the First 
Brigade of Footguards. It is not so well written as that of Reservist 
Schlauter, and is much underlined. 

Spielman describes a night alarm on September 1 in a village near 
Blamont : 

"The villagers fled. It was horrible. All the houses are spat- 
tered with blood and the faces of the dead are hideous. They were 
buried immediately, sixty of them. There were a lot of old women 
among them, and one woman enceinte, the whole thing a horrible 
sight, and three children who had clung to one another and died 
like that. The altar and the arches of the church have collapsed 
The villagers had telephoned to the enemy. This morning, Sep- 
tember 2 all the survivors were expelled. I saw four little boys 
aided by two sticks attached to a cradle carrying a child of five 
or six months old. It's a, case of a blow for a blow. Everything 
is plundered . . . And I saw, too, (among the fleeing vil- 
lagers), a mother and her two little children, and one had a great 
wound on the head and an eye put out . . ." 
As to villagers and the telephone; Professor Bedier reminds us that 
article 50 of the Hague Convention, 1907, signed in the name of the 
Kaiser by Baron Marschall Von Bieberstein expressly stipulates that 
"no collective punishment, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted on 
a population because of individual deeds for which they cannot be held 
collectively responsible." 

What tribunal, he asks, on that night of horrors, took the trouble 
to establish such responsibility? 

A private of the 32nd Reserve Infantry writes in his diary (un- 
signed :) 

"September 3. Creil. The iron bridge has been blown up. 
On that account we have set streets on fire and shot civilians." 
The remains of the great bridge across the Oise at Creil are an indes- 
cribable tangle of masonry blocks, twisted girders and broken strands. 
It is known that regular troops, either French or English, destroyed the 
bridge and such a work was an expert feat of engineering. One may 
recall that the German officer Home utterly failed in a much easier 
task at Vianceboro, Maine, and presumably he lacked neither the weap- 
ons nor the experience. To excuse such a massacre as reported at Creil 
the Germans, when they have condescended to furnish an excuse, have us- 



ually said that "civilians" or "franctireurs" had fired on their troops. 
But a "scrap of paper" signed by Germany — the Convention of 1907 — 
provides in its very first article that "the law^s, rights and privileges of 
w^ar apply not only to the army but also to militia and bodies of volun- 
teers" fulfilling certain conditions of which the chief is "to bear arms 
openly," and, in the second article it is agreed that "the population of a 
territory not occupied, who, at the approach of the enemy spontaneously 
take up arms in order to fight the invading troops without having the 
time to organize themselves in accordance with article one shall be 
deemed belligerents providing arms are borne openly and respect paid 
to the laws and customs of war." 

In the light of the foregoing please consider the tales of barbarism 
which follow : 

(a) Diary of Private Hassemer (Eighth Corps) : 
"3.9.1914. At Sommepy (Mar«e.) 

Frightful bloodshed, the village burnt to the ground, French 
thrown into the flaming houses, civilians and everything burnt to- 
gether." 

(b) Diary of Lieut. Kietzmann (2nd company, 1st Battalion of 
49th Infantry Regiment) under date of Aug. 18th. 

"A little ahead of Diest there is the village of Schaffen. Fifty civ- 
ilians, about, were concealed in the tower of the Church and from 
above they fired upon our troops with a mitrailleuse. All the civ- 
ilians have been shot." 

(c) Diary of an anonymous Saxon officer (178th Regt., 12th Ami}' 
Corps, 1st Saxon Corps.) 

"August 26. The charming village of Gue-D'Hossus (Ardennes), 

though guiltless, as I think, has been burnt. I was told that a 

cyclist fell from his machine and that his gun as a result of the fall 

went off accidentally. Then they made a fire in that place. Male 

members of the population were literally thrown into the flames. 

One must hope that such atrocities will not be repeated." 

This was not the first time that the unknown Saxon officer had 

seen "such atrocities." On the evening of Aug. 25th, at Villersen- 

Fagne (Belgian Ardennes) where some killed and wounded Germans 

had been found, he had seen "the parish priest and other residents shot ;" 

and two days earlier, Aug. 23, at the village of Bouvigues, to the north 

of Dinant he had seen things which he thus describes : 

"By a gap in the rear we enter the property of a well-to-do resident 
and we occupy the house. Across a labyrinth of apartments we 
reach the threshold. There lay the dead body of the owner. In- 
side the house our men, like vandals, have destroyed everything. 
Everything has been ransacked. Along the countryside the spec- 
tacle of villagers lying dead on the ground bafiles description. 
The shooting at close quarters has almost decapitated them. Every 
house has been ransacked to its innermost recesses and the little 
savings of the people have been wrested from them. Men shot ; 
women and children locked up in a convent whence some shots had 
been fired. For this reason the convent is on the point of being 
burnt; nevertheless it can be ransomed if it will surrender the cul- 
prits and' pay tribute of 15,000 francs." 

(d) Diary of Private Phillipp (of Kamenz 1st Company, 1st Bat- 
talion of 178th Regiment.) 

6 



"At ten o'clock in the evening the 1st Battalion of the 178th 
went down to a village burnt north of Dinant. Terrifyingly splen- 
did spectacle. At the entrance of the village were about fifty vil- 
lagers shot for having fired on our troops from ambush. During 
the night many others were shot, so that we counted over 200. 
Women and children with lamps in their hands had to witness the 
terrible spectacle. We ate our rice among the corpses, for we 
had eaten nothing since morning." 

"Women and children with lamps in their hands had to witness the 
terrible spectacle." As to whether the spectacle was the actual mas- 
sacre or the numbering of the poor victims, or both, Private Philipp 
ofifers no information. 

Professor Bedier shows that the gallant colonel of the noble 178th 
on that fateful evening was merely acting in harmony with his comrades 
in arms elsewhere and, as I shall show in another chapter, in strict ac- 
cordance with the spirit of the official "German War Book." Some ex- 
tracts from the ignoble proclamations that the Germans posted in Bel- 
gium may be here cited in proof of the spirit that inspires Teuton arms 
in modern days. 

The first extract is from a proclamation by General Von Bulow 
placarded at Liege, Aug. 22, 1914. 

"The people of the town of Andenne, after protesting their 
peaceful intentions, have treacherously surprised our troops. Act- 
ing with my approval the General in command has burnt the entire 
district and about one hundred persons have been shot." 
Here's another extract, this time from a proclamation issued at 
Grivegnee, Sept. 8, 1914, by the Major Commandant Dieckmann : 

"He who fails to comply immediately with the order 'Hands 
up!' renders himself guilty (sic) of the penalty of death." 
The following extract is from a proclamation of Field Marshal 
Baron von der Goltz posted at Brussels Oct. 5, 1914: 

"In future the places nearest to the scene where similar acts 
(destruction of railroads and telegraph lines) have taken place — 
WHETHER ACCOMPLICES OR NOT MATTERS LITTLE— 
will be punished without mercy. To this end hostages have been 
taken from all districts adjacent to railroads threatened by sim- 
ilar attacks and at the first attempt to destroy* railroads, telegraph 
wires or telephone they will be immediately shot." 
If any critic feels inclined to doubt that the Germans in this case 
were not true to their word they are referred for a most convincing 
demonstration to the Sixth Report of the Belgian Commission of En- 
quiry (Havre, Nov. 10, 1914.) 

Women and Children Slaughtered. 

After the raid of the Zeppelins in England recently, a prominent 
German-American wrote to the American newspapers expressing a re- 
gret that a woman and a child should have been killed by the bomb 
throwing. He stated that the Germans "in war, as in peace, have a pro- 
found respect for women and children," and he defied any critic to say 
that any of the Kaiser's soldiers had been guilty of killing women and 
children in the present campaign. Accusations to the contrary he de- 



nounced as "malicious libels circulated by a subsidised press to defame 
the honor of German manhood and the glory of the GermanArmy." It 
was evident that the indignant correspondent had not read either the re- 
ports of the Belgian Commission of Enquiry, or the report of the French 
Commission presented to the President of the French Cabinet, Sept. 23, 
1914, and that he was equally ignorant of the testimony of Germans 
themselves with which this work is more exclusively concerned. 

Here is the first extract from a German war diary — unsigned this 
time but the original is open for inspection — ^by way of answer to the 
prominent German-American. 

"Langeviller, (Aug. 22.) Village destroyed by the 11th Pio- 
neer Battalion. Three women hanged on trees — the first dead I 
have seen." 
Who were these three women? asks Professor Bedier. Had they 
fired on the troops or ''telephoned to the enemy" and were therefore 
"justly punished" by the Uth Pioneer Battalion? And was there no 
officer in the troops that followed after to cut down their bodies and con- 
sign them to the earth? No, they were left to swing, an example of 
"frightfulness" not only for the French but also for the German troops 
fresh from home "to season them." 

Yet he was not easily seasoned, the private who saw the dead women 
on the trees. A week after — a week with the German Army ! — he notes 
in his diary : 

"We thus destroyed eight houses with their inhabitants. In 
one alone two men with their wives and a girl of eighteen were 
killed with the bayonet. It went to my heart to see the girl killed, 
she had such an innocent look, but there was nothing to be done 
with the excited mass, for then they are not men but beasts." 
Just to show that the slaughter of women and children are not ex- 
ceptional crimes for German soldiers. Professor Bedier cites the author 
of another unsigned diary who reports that at Orchies (Nord) 

"a woman was run through for not having obeyed the command 
'Halt!' whereupon we burnt the place." 

The officer of the 178th Saxon Regiment already quoted reports 
that on the outskirts of Lisognes (Belgian Ardennes) 

"an infantryman of Marburg having placed three women one be- 
hind the other brought them down with the same bullet." 
And then there is the evidence of Reservist Schlauter (3rd Battery, 
4th Regiment of Field Artillery of the Guard) whose handwriting has 
already been reproduced in these pages in facsimile : 

"Aug. 25 (in Belgium.) Of the inhabitants of the town 300 
were shot. Those who survived the volley were requisitioned as 
gravediggers. The women were a sight! But it cannot be helped. 
Things went better on our march to Wilot: the inhabitants who 
wanted to leave were allowed to go where they desired. But 
those who fired at us were shot. As we were marching out of 
Owele rifles rang out, but there- — there were fire, women and every- 
thing else." 
Schlauter mercifully leaves that "everything else" to one's imagina- 
tion! 



German Nation Dishonored. 

There are some crimes in war which dishonor not merely those 
who practice them but the army which permits them and the nation 
which can applaud them. Surely no excuse can be found for the action 
of German troops who, desiring to capture a position, deliberately 
placed before them civilians, men, women and children, a veritable bar- 
rier of living human flesh. It is base strategy which relies for success 
upon the appeal made to the humanity and chivalry of the enemy, as if 
one said to him "I am sure you won't be so mean as to fire upon these 
poor people and so I hold you, unarmed, at my mercy because you are 
less cowardly than I." French, Belgians and English have accused the 
Germans of such practices and the evidence seems incontrovertible. The 
official reports are the authority and they have not been disproved. Pro- 
fessor Bedier in "Les Crimes AUemands" asks this pertinent question: 
"How can you doubt that the German nation accepts these blackguardly 
exploits as deeds worthy of Germany, that she is indeed grateful for 
them, pleased with them, when the following narrative, signed by a 
Bavarian ofhcer, First Lieutenant A. Eberlein, is paraded in one of the 
most famous newspapers of Germany, the "Miinchner Neueste Nach- 
richten" in its issue of Wednesday, 7th* Oct., 1914 (no. 513, Vorabendr 
bladtt, p. 2) ? Eberlein describes the occupation of Saint Die at the end 
of August. Having entered the village at the head of a column, he was 
obliged to barricade himself in a house while awaiting reinforcements. 
Here is the story which he tells under an approving headline in the 
"Miinchner Neueste Nachtrichten," a somewhat conservative sheet in 
Germany and quite opposed usually to the traditions of saffron journal- 
ism: 

"After arresting three civilians a happy idea came to me. We 
placed them on chairs and gave them to understand that they must sit 
in the middle of the street. Their entreaties were answered by blows 
with the butt ends of our muskets. Little by little a man becomes ter- 
ribly hard. At last they are seated in the street as we direct. How 
many agonizing appeals they made I cannot say but all the time they 
held each other's trembling hands. I pitied them but the ruse answers. 
The enfilading fire directed upon us from the houses very soon de- 
creases ; now we are able to occupy the house opposite and in that way 
become the masters of the principal street. Henceforth anyone who 
shows himself in the street is shot. Meantime our artillery has also 
been hard at work and when, towards seven o'clock at night, the brig- 
ade advances to the attack in order to support us, I am able to make the 
report 'Saint-Die is empty of enemies.' 

"As I learnt later the . . . th Reserve Regiment which entered 
Saint-Die more to the north had experiences precisely similar to ours. 
The four civilians that they compelled to remain seated in the street 
were killed by French bullets. I saw them myself lying in the middle 
of the street near the hospital." 

Plunder and Arson. 

Article 28 of the Hague Convention, 1907, signed by Germany spe- 
cially forbids pillage of a town or even a place taken by assault, and Ar- 
ticle 47 says "pillage in occupied territory is forbidden." 



German soldiers, as we shall see, are not to be handicapped by mere 
conventions of the Hague — they also are "mere scraps of paper." 

Private Handschuhmacher (11th Battalion of Reserve Infantry) 
writes in his diary : 

"Aug. 8th 1914, Gouvy, (Belgium.) The Belgians having fired 
upon German soldiers we soon applied ourselves to the task of rob- 
bing the freight station. Boxes, eggs, shirts; everything that 
could be eaten was taken away. The safe was smashed open and 
the gold distributed amongst the men. The securities we des- 
troyed." 

This event took place on the fourth day of the war and it helps us 
to understand how in a technical article upon the operations of the Mili- 
tary Treasury (der Zahlmeister im Felde,) the Berliner Tageblatt, 26th 
November, 1914 (1. Beiblatt) notes in a simple incident a somewhat 
strange economic phenomenon. "How is it," the "Tageblatt"' asks, 
"that as a matter of experience there is sent by postal order much more 
money from the scene of operations towards Germany than vice versa 
. ." ("Da nun aber erfahrungsgemass viel mehr Geld vom Kriegs- 
schauplatz nach der Heimat gesandt wird. . .") 

The testimony of Petty Officer Herman Levith (160th Infantry, 8th 
Army Corps) is quoted as showing that pillage is only the prelude of 
incendiarism. 

"The enemy has occupied the village of Bievre and the out- 
skirts of a wood from behind. The third company advanced in 
the first line. We captured the village then plundered and burnt 
almost all the houses." 
Hear also the evidence of Private Schiller (133rd Infantry, 19th 
Army Corps) : 

"Our first fight took place at Haybes (Ardennes) on Aug. 24. 
The second battalion enters the village, runs through the houses, 
pillages them and burns those from which there had been shoot- 
ing." 
Private Sebastien Reishaupt (3rd Bavarian Infantry, 1st Bavarian 
Corps) writes : 

"Parux: (Meurthe-et-Moselle) was the first village we set afire ; 

after that the fun commenced ; one village succeeded another ; by 

field and meadow we cycled along to the ditches at the side of the 

road and there we ate cherries !" 

"Schnapps, wine, marmalade, cigars," writes this humble private — 

nothing escaped their clutches. And the distinguished officer of the 

178th Saxon Reginjent who was at first indignant at the "vandalism" 

of his men confesses that he, in his turn, on Sept. 1st at Rethel has stolen 

"from a house near the Hotel Moderne a splendid waterproof and a 

camera outfit for Felix." They rob without distinction of rank or corps 

not excluding the doctors. Johannes Thode (4th Reserve Regiment) 

writes in his diary : 

"At Brussels 5|10|14. An automobile arrives at the hospital 

and brings spoils of war; a piano, two sewing machines, plenty 

of albums and all sorts of other things." 

Professor Bedier in his comments upon these warspoils — Kriegs- 

beute as the Germans call it — suggests that the two sewing machines had 

been stolen from two poor Belgian women. "And at whose instance?" 

he asks. 

10 



Soldiers Who Protest. 

Amongst the forty odd diaries reviewed by Professor Bedier there 
were only six or seven which failed to relate some misdeed and there 
were actually three in which the authors describing some disgraceful 
happenings expressed astonishment, indignation and grief. He does not 
tell us the names of the latter because they are deserving of our good-will 
and incidentally he does not wish to expose them to the risk of being 
blamed when they return home or even punished. Private X. . ., who 
belongs to the 65th Landwehr Infantry speaks thus of his comrades in 
arms : 

"They do not behave themselves like soldiers, but rather as 
highway robbers, bandits and brigands and are a disgrace to our 
regiment and army." 
Another soldier, Lieut. Y. . . ., of the 77th Reserve Infantry, 
says : 

"No discipline : . . . pioneers aren't worth much : as to 
the' gunners they are a band of thieves." 
And the third witness, Private Z.. . ,, of the 12th Reserve In- 
fantry (1st Reserve Corps) writes: 

"Unhappily I am forced to note a fact which ought never to 
have been possible; but even in our army there are some wretches 
unworthy to be called men, swine to whom nothing is sacred. 
Despite the locked door, one of them entered a Sacristy where the 
Holy Sacrament was kept. Out of respect a Protestant had re- 
frained from sleeping there but this man defecated there. Why 
do such beings exist? Last night a man of the Landwehr, more 
than 35 years old, married, wished to outrage the daughter of a 
villager in whose home he had found shelter — a young girl ; and 
because the father interfered he prodded him in the chest with his 
bayonet." 

Apart from these three soldiers the thirty other diarists seem made 
of the same base clay, differing from each other only in degree, some 
writing approvingly, some sneeringly, and there were some amongst 
them, their ugly work ended, who would open their book of canticles 
and sing psalms. Such a person was the Saxon Lieutenant Reislang who 
describes how he left an orgie to attend a "Gottesdienst" but having 
eaten and drunk too much he was obliged to hurry from the meeting 
house! Another was Private Moritz Grosse of the 177th Infantry who, 
after describing the sacking of Dinant (Aug. 23) wrote this sentence: 
"Discharge of fire grenades into the houses ; evening, military 
chorale: Nun danket alle Gott!" (Now thank we all our God!) 
Professor Bedier notes that the culprits resemble each other and he 
adds this trenchant summary: If, he says, you will just reflect that I 
can multiply the extracts given by others similar and not less cynical, 
taken, for instance, from the diary of Reservist Lautenschlager (1st 
Battalion, 66th Infantry Regiment,) or the diary of Private Edward 
Hohl (Eighth Army Corps,) or the diary of Petty Ofificer Reinhold 
Koelm (2nd Battalion of Pomeranian Pioneers,) or the diary of Petty 
Officer Otto Brandt (2nd Reserve Ambulance Section), or the diary of 
Reservist Martin Muller (100th Saxon^ Reserve), or the diary of Lieut. 
Karl Zimmer (55th Infantry,) or the diary of Private Erich Pressler 

11 



(100th Grenadiers, 1st Saxon Corps,) etc.; and if you will note that of 
the enormities already reported there are very few which may be 
charged to individual, isolated ruffians (such as may be met and are met, 
alas ! in the most noble of armies ;) and that I have confined myself here 
chiefly to crimes committed in routine service, (service commande) 
which concern and disgrace not the individual only but the entire com- 
pany, the ofhcer and the nation ; and if you will observe finally that 
these thirty diaries. Bavarian or Saxon, Baden or Rheinlander, Pomer- 
anian or Brandenburger, taken at random, are most certainly repre- 
sentative of HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS OF OTHERS 
EITHER SIMILAR OR OF SURPRISING UNIFORMITY, you will 
be forced, I believe, to conclude that M. Rene Viviani speaking from 
the elevation of the French tribune was well within the limit when he 
alluded to "THIS SYSTEM OF COLLECTIVE PLUNDER AND 
MURDER THAT GERMANY CALLS WAR." 

Prisoners Massacred. 

Belgian and French official reports, let alone unofficial statements 
by English and Russian, teem with proofs that the Hague Convention 
of 1907 which provides in article 24 for the safety of prisoners of war, 
and to which the Kaiser was a party, has been violated again and again. 
The following is the text of an Order of the Day addressed by Gen- 
eral Stenger, commander of the 58th German Brigade to his men on 
August 26th : 

"From this day forth there will be no more prisoners. All 
the prisoners will be slaughtered. Even prisoners already formed 
into convoys will be massacred. Behind us we will leave no liv- 
ing enemy, (signed) Stoy, 1st Lieutenant Commanding; Neubauer, 
Colonel Commanding; Stenger, General Commanding." 
It happens that thirty soldiers of Stenger's Brigade (112th and 142nd 
Regiments of Baden Infantry) were questioned in the French depots 
of prisoners. Professor Bedier saw their depositions, given under oath 
and signed with their names. All confirm that this terrible order was 
in fact conveyed to them on August 26th., to one unit by Major Mose- 
bach, to another by Lieutenant Curtius, and so forth, the majority pro- 
fessing to ignore whether the order was executed but three amongst 
them alleging that it was in their presence in the forest of Thiaville 
where ten or a dozen wounded Frenchmen, already received by a bat- 
talion as prisoners, were despatched. Two others saw the order executed 
along the Thiaville road where some wounded, found in the ditches by 
a company on the march, were slaughtered. 

The Professor does not, in this case, produce the autograph of 
General Stenger and naturally he is not giving away the names of the 
German prisoners who testified. He has no difficulty, however, with his 
great mass of evidence, in proving crimes quite similar and he presents a 
number of German autographs in his book. Here is an extract from 
the diary of Private Albert Delfosse (111th Reserve Infantry, Fourteenth 
Reserve Corps :) 

"In the forest (near Saint Remy, Sept. 4th or 5th) met a very 
fine cow and calf slaughtered ; and again some French corpses 
shockingly mutilated." 

12 



It is just possible, of course, that these corpses may have 'been cut 
to pieces by shells but in view of the following "Soldiers Letter" pub- 
hshed by the local paper of Jauer, a town of Silesia, other interpreta- 
tions are clearly permissible. Professor Bedier gives a facsimile of the 
Jauersches Tageblatt of Oct. 18, 1914. This letter written by Sergeant 
Klemt (1st Company, 154th Infantry) is published under the headline: 
"A day of Honor for Our Regiment." 

Klemt tells how on Sept. 24 his regiment which had left Han- 
nonville in the morning supported on the march by some Austrian bat- 
teries was suddenly fired upon by artillery and infantry. The enemy re- 
mained unseen and the losses were terrific. At last, he says, "we no- 
ticed that the bullets were coming from the tops of trees where some 
French troops were ensconced." Let Klemt's words tell the rest : 

"We made them scamper down like squirrels and gave them 
a hot reception with the butt ends of rifles and bayonets : they had 
no more need of doctors ; we were no longer fighting honorable en- 
emies but low brigands. By leaps and bounds we crossed the clear- 
ing. Here and there we found them hid in bushes and we go for 
them right and left. No quarter is given. Standing erect we let fly ; 
few indeed fire from the kneeling position; nobody thinks of shel- 
tering himself. We come to a dip in the ground, dead and wounded 
'Red Trousers' (French) lie about in piles, the wounded are beaten or 
stabbed to death, for we know that as soon as we have passed these 
rascals will shoot us in the back. A Frenchy lies stretched out there, 
his face to the ground but he is only feigning death. A kick from a 
strapping private lets him know we are there. Turning over he 
cries : Tardon !' but the next moment he is pinned to the earth with 
the words : 'There you . . . that's how we give you some of 
your own-medicine.' The uncanny cracking by my side comes from 
the blows which one of our men is raining down with the butt end 
of his musket on the bald head of a Frenchman. He was sagely 
using a French rifle for this work in order not to smash his own. 
Particularly soft-hearted men finish off the Frenchmen with a 
bullet, the others hack and stab as hard as they can. Our foe 
struggled bravely; they were picked men we had before us; they 
had allowed us to approach within ten to thirty yards — too near! 
Knapsacks and arms thrown in a heap indicated that they had 
wished to run but at the sight of the Kaiser's Own, fright paralyzed 
their feet and upon the narrow path they took, German bullets 
gave them the command to halt! At the entrance of the leafy 
shelters they lie slightly and seriously wounded, vainly whinnying 
for quarter, but our brave soldiers spare the Fatherland the ex- 
pense of nursing our numerous enemies." 
The narrative goes on to say that His Royal Highness, Prince 
Oscar of Prussia being informed of the glorious achievements of the 
154th and of the Grenadier Regiment, brigaded with the 154th, declared 
them both worthy of the title "Konigsbrigade" ("The King's Own") and 
winds up with this literary flourish : "Evening arrived, we went to sleep 
with a prayer of thanksgiving upon our lips and with hope for the day 
to follow." This German tale of war. is certified true by Lieutenant de 
Niem who signs his name. It is addressed by Klemt to his town of 
Jauer where he is assured in advance of a complaisant editor to accept, 
publishers to print and quite a population to enjoy. 

13 



The question naturally arises in what other country except Ger- 
many would such a disgraceful effusion be printed and heralded under 
big scare headlines — all faithfully reproduced in facsimile from the Jauer- 
sches Tageblatt in "Les Crimes Allemands"— and what is one's es- 
timate of the state of "Kultur" in which such a thing is possible let 
alone commendable? Speaking from experience of Europe and of 
eleven years on this side of the Atlantic, I believe that in Germany alone 
under the present system would a family newspaper become the accom- 
plice post facto of Klemt and his fellow Criminals. To approve by publi- 
cation such deeds as this "soldier" describes is to condone and encourage 
them. I need not add that it is no more "perfidious" or illegal to fire 
upon the enemy from the branches of a tree than to fire from the top 
of a window or the bottom of a trench and soldiers know perfectly well 
that such a practice is not less brave and dangerous. One might add 
in passing it is far more brave and dangerous for soldiers so ensconced 
to fire upon a well armed and numerically superior foe than, for ex- 
ample, battle cruisers to cannonade defenceless watering places on Eng- 
land's East Coast or for Zeppelins at night under the cover of darkness 
to drop bombs upon sleeping women and children in England's home 
counties — two vivid chapters in the Gospel of Frightfulness which 
have elicited the royal approval of the Kaiser and incidentally entailed 
a further depreciation in the value of the once coveted Iron Cross. 



14 



III.— ARSON, PILLAGE, MURDER. 

The numerous official reports made 'by French and Belgian Com- 
mittees of Investigation corroborate in every essential detail the crimes 
recorded by the German diarists and they add much other evidence which 
German apologists will find it impossible to contradict. In due course 
there will be another inquiry made by neutrals which will command 
special attention in the United States where we have been told that 
the accusations against German soldiers on the field are based either on 
the wild imaginings of irresponsible witnesses, or the malicious in- 
ventions of surviving belligerents in hostile armies. The Germans have 
not thought it worth while to institute an enquiry of any sort. If 
such a task is ever undertaken by them one may suggest by way of a 
start; that they study the "findings" of the highly authoritative and capable 
committees appointed by the Belgians, French and English. The 
French and the Belgian have been published in full in French ; both give 
details regarding places, dates, names, and testimony. The English has 
not yet left the press. 

I quote the following passage from the French "Journal Officiel" 
8th January, 1915, which prints, in full, the report of the French Com- 
mission appointed to investigate German atrocities in France : 

"The proof upon which we rely for our findings consists of oui 
personal observations, photographic documents and numerous testi- 
monies given in judiciary form under oath. In a general way one may 
affirm that 

"never before has a war between civilized nations been marked by 
such savage and ferocious features as that now being waged upon 
our country by an implacable adversary. Pillage, rape, incen- 
diarism and murder are practiced commonly by our enemies and 
the facts which have been daily revealed, while they constitute as- 
tounding crimes against the common law punished by the codes 
of all countries with the most severe and exacting penalties, show 
incidentally that German mentality since 1870 has deteriorated 
amazingly. 

"Assaults upon women and girls have been of unheard-of fre- 
quency. We have proved a great number which represent, how- 
ever, only an infinitely small proportion of those with which we 
might have been able to deal, but for the sentiment of modesty 
upon the part of the victims of hateful acts who refuse generally 
to reveal them. No doubt there would have been less committed 
if the chiefs of an army in which discipline is most severe had 
taken the trouble to issue warnings. These crimes against the 
person may be considered as individual acts of unchained brutes 
but such cannot be said of the campaign of incendiarism, theft 
and assassination. For these commanding officers must be held 
responsible 'before humanity. 

"In most of the places where we made our investigations we 
were able to satisfy ourselves that the German Army showed a 

15 



perpetual disregard and contempt for human life; that its soldiers 
and even its chiefs did not think it wrong to slay the wounded; 
that they killed without pity inoffensive villagers of territories 
invaded and that they did not spare in their homicidal rage either 
women, aged men or children. The shootings of Luneville, Ger- 
beviller, Nomeny and Senlis are terrifying examples and you will 
read in the course of our report descriptions of scenes of bloodshed 
in which officers themselves were not ashamed to take part. 

"One's mind refuses to believe that all these killings took 
place without offence. Such, however, is the case. The Germans, 
it is true, always gave the same excuse, pretending that civilians 
had commenced by firing upon them. This allegation is untrue 
and those who have made it have been unable to give it a sem- 
blance of truth even when they went to the extent of firing their 
own rifles in the neighborhood of houses, as they were accustomed 
to do, in order to represent that they had been attacked by innocent 
people upon whose ruin and massacre they were bent. 

"Not alone human life but also personal liberty is an object 
of complete disdain on the part of the German military authority. 
Almost everywhere we found that citizens of all ages' have been 
dragged from their homes and led into captivity. Many died or 
were killed en route. Incendiarism is even a more customary prac- 
tice with the enemy than murder. It is constantly emplgyed by the 
Germans either as a means of systematic devastation or for pur- 
poses of intimidation. To this end the German Army possesses 
an up-to-date plant including torches, hand-grenades, fuses, pet- 
roleum pumps, rockets and finally, little packages containing tab- 
loids of a most inflammable powder. The rage for incendiarism ex- 
pressed itself chiefly against churches and monuments possessing 
an artistic or historical interest. In the various departments where 
we have investigated, thousands of houses have been found burnt 
but we have taken no record except of those which were the re- 
sult of exclusive criminal intention, ignoring fires caused by shells 
in the course of pitched battles or due to causes which it has not 
been possible to determine in precise fashion. Robbery, we re- 
port, has been perpetual and we do not hesitate to allege that 
wherever .an enemy troop has passed, the place has been handed 
over in the presence of the officers and often with their participa- 
tion, to a systematic and organized pillage. Cellars have been emp- 
tied of their last bottles, safes have been smashed open and con- 
siderable sums have been taken. A great quantity of silverware 
and jewels, also pictures, furniture accessories, artistic objects, 
linen, bicycles, women's clothes, sewing machines, even the chil- 
dren's playthings, have been taken away and placed upon vehicles 
destined for the frontier. 

"Against all such robbery, as against all manner of crime, 
there has been no appeal and if some wretched villager ventured 
to ask an officer to intervene in order to spare a life or to protect 
property, the only reply received, sometimes accompanied by threats 
was an unwavering formula to the effect that the war was respon- 
sible for everything, even the crudest of abominations." 

16 



The French report deals with the investigations of German 
crimes in the Provinces of Seine and Marne, The Marne, The 
Meuse, Meurthe and Moselle, Oise and Aisne, and deserves to be 
republished in full for the benefit of American readers, even of 
hyphenated citizens who desire conclusive proof of allegations to 
which unofficial reference has 'been made in the diaries of German 
soldiers already quoted. 

One might write an entire chapter describing deeds committed 
by German soldiers in violation of the rules of war as regards 
combatants, the murder of wounded or prisoners, ruses forbidden 
by international conventions and assaults upon ambulances, but all 
these things are treated fully in official reports and I need not 
further allude to them here. 

An International Report, 

The evidence already collected and the reports presented deal- 
ing with the criminology of the present war would fill a library, 
and notable additions are made daily. -It is noteworthy that the find- 
ings of the Commissioners, whether French, Belgian or English, agree 
in all important conclusions. An International Commission consisting 
of Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, K.C.B., formerly Under-Secretary for the 
British Home Department (president) ; Monsieur E. De Cartier de 
Marchienne, Belgian Minister to China ; Monsieur H. Lafontaine, Sen- 
ator; and Dr. H. Davignon (secretary), has recently presented a report 
dealing with the atrocities in Belgium — a new record of German "fright- 
fulness" — of arson, pillage, murder. 

It is too long to reprint here, but new proof — if that is necessary — 
is furnished to the effect that the German army of invasion carried out 
a system of intimidation, of reprisals, and of devastation against a dis- 
armed and inoffensive population on Belgian soil, without regard to 
any military or strategical objects, and among towns and villages al- 
ready evacuated by their opponents. This system is brought to view 
by three classes of acts which are offences alike against International 
Law and against Military Law. 

1. The barbarous device of compelling bodies of civilians, 
old and young, male and female, to march in front of German troops 
in order to shield them from the fire of the Allies. 

2. The imprisonment, either under the title of "hostages," 
or on other pretexts, of individuals, families, or groups of people, 
who were arrested at hazard and for no good reason, shut up 
without air, without sanitary precautions, and without food in 
churches, barns, and stables, and carried ofif to Germany, where 
they were kept under conditions which made hygiene and decency 
impossible. 

3. Wholesale murders of civilians and the sack and burning 
of dwelling houses ; concerning these incidents the light of evidence 
grows daily stronger. 

Children As Shields. 

Dealing with acts under the first head, the report states that from 
the first moment when the German army came into touch with the Bel- 

17 



gian forces before Liege it sought to protect itself by thrusting before 
it groups of civilians. One witness described the way in which a 
German battery, which was firing at the Carmelite Monastery of 
Chevremont, sought to shelter itself from the fire of a fort by massing 
around itself people arrested from the neighboring villages, including 
women and even children. The same witness declares that he saw a 
body of German troops, who passed through the gap between the forts 
Fleron and Chaudefontaine, driving before them many civilians, whom 
they had picked up on the highway; most of them had their hands 
tied behind their backs. Another group was made to march in the 
middle of the column ; it included an old man of 80 years of age, whom 
two companions had literally to drag along. 

Another witness saw men, women, and children forced to spend 
the night on a bridge over the Sambre in order that the French might 
be prevented from bombarding it. Others, including four priests, were 
pushed forward toward the French firing line. On the following morn- 
ing the witness noticed eight nuns stationed on the bridge to preserve 
it against attempts at destruction. 

At Tamines, a witness who was looking on from a window, saw 
the combat between French and German troops along the line of the 
Sambre ; he noticed that the Germans thrust some civilians before 
them across the bridge. When these unfortunate people tried to save 
themselves by slipping into the first houses beyond the bridge, the 
Germans fired on them, and several ran mortally wounded into the very 
house in which the witness was standing, and died there. At Tournai 
the German troops madei their entry on Aug. 24, sheltering themselves 
behind several ranks of civilians. This method was not only used by 
bodies of troops in regular order of march, but by mere patrols. 

Barbarity to Hostages. 

By evidence from several quarters the delegates learnt that the 
number of civilian prisoners interned in Germany — men, women, and 
children— was large. Numerous refugees detailed to them the circum- 
stances under which they were separated from members of their fam- 
ilies. Some, after having been arrested without any cause, and marched 
about for .several days undergoing treatment of odious brutality and 
cruelty, succeeded in escaping. Others were taken off to Germany, 
where they were exposed to insults and maltreatment, and then Avere 
brought back to Belgium and turned loose at some chance spot in the 
fields. Everywhere there has been a system in vogue by which great 
numbers of individuals — whole families, and even the whole population 
of a hamlet or village — have been made prisoners en masse, under some 
mere pretext, or for no reason at all. 

The inhuman treatment meted out to various parties of civilian 
prisoners taken to Germany is described at length. One party were 
removed to Cologne from Louvain, the journey, made in filthy cattle- 
trucks, occupying four days, during which time the prisoners received 
no food, and were not allowed to open the doors. They spent one night 
in Cologne, receiving one loaf for every ten persons. Being fifteen 
days old (the date was stamped on it) the bread was too hard to eat. 
Next day the party entrained for Brussels, spending fifty hours in the 
train without food. 

18 



"We are assured that the moral sufferings of the prisoners are even 
worse than their physical sufferings. They have to live in unpleasant 
and dangerous contiguity with individuals suffering from contagious 
diseases. These civilians are of all ranks of life. All alike are con- 
demned to complete idleness. The German soldiery, alleging that they 
are dealing with 'franc-tireurs and murderers," treat them with the 
brutality. Can we wonder at the fact that many of the prisoners have 
become insane? , 

"Especially hard was the lot of certain 'hostages' who were arrested 
in many places in order to secure the delivery of war contributions ab- 
solutely disproportionate to the resources of the localities on which they 
were imposed. The venerable Bishop 'of Tournai, an old man and an 
invalid, was shut up for five days at Ath, in a nauseous place, where he 
had only a mattress to lie upon, and no food save what certain devoted 
ladies brought him." 

Wholesale Executions. 

A large proportion of the civilians arrested by the German troops 
were set aside for execution. Several refugees described the casual 
way in which they were arrested, then released, then arrested again 
and led about like a flock of sheep — then how they were separated into 
two groups and shut up for the night, with a warning that they would 
be shot next day — lastly how they were placed in line against a hedge or a 
wall, how the rifles were levelled against them, and then they were al- 
lowed to go scot free ! 

"On the other hand numerous witnesses saw with their own eyes 
'hostages' shot dead by a German firing-party. It is remarkable that 
these executions took place not during a combat but long after. They 
were the systematic vengeance of the invading army on the harmless 
inhabitants of places at which they had met unexpected resistance from 
our regular troops." 

At a certain village in the province of Liege the parish priest and 
the secretary of the commune were shot by the roadside, after having 
been arrested in the house of the latter. This happened under the 
eyes of a witness, who only escaped a similar fate by slipping behind a 
hedge. 

At Gelrode seven young men were seized in the church where the 
village people had sought shelter at the enemy's approach ; they were 
taken out and shot, after having been slashed about with sabres. 

At Ermeton the Abbe Schlogel, parish priest of Hastieres, M. Pon- 
thieres, a professor of the University of Louvain, and the village school- 
master, with certain others, were shot. 

Among the groups of persons gathered together for an execution 
en masse there was a preliminary system of separation. Generally 
women, children, and old men were let off. In one instance a boy of 
about 14 was shifted several times from one side of the road to the other, 
and finally left on the side where everyone was shot. 

"In these executions there was no question of a trial — there was 
an arbitrary selection among a mass of innocent people, of whom some 
were chosen 'to pay for the acts of the guilty.' But who were the guilty? 

19 



And what crimes had they committed ? No one knows ! Of sixty-two 
witnesses who appeared before us, and were cross-examined with care 
on this point, not one admitted that any civilians had been firing on the 
enemy. On the contrary, they all described to us the terror of the 
countryside on the approach of the invaders, and declared that the in- 
structions issued by the local authorities concerning the surrender of 
firearms had been faithfully carried out. Very many witnesses declared 
that German soldiers, in a state of drunkenness, discharged their rifles 
at large, and then reported to their officers that they had been fired on 
by civilians. On the faith of such stories their superiors at once or- 
dered 'the customary reprisals' — pillage, arson, and the shooting of in- 
habitants seized at haphazard." 

Two Village Massacres. 

Two peculiarly atrocious examples of wholesale murder are men- 
tioned. At Surice, while the village was burning, a group of some fifty 
or sixty persons of both sexes were driven together. The eighteen men 
were separated from the women and told that they were to be shot. 
Among them were the parish priests of Anthee, Onhaye, and Surice, and 
another ecclesiastic. There were fathers and sons side by side. Oppo- 
site them were their mothers and daughters wailing and praying. The 
massacre was carried out under their eyes^ — all the men fell together 
mowed down by a volley. One or two showed signs of life, whereupon 
the soldiers finished them ofif with the butt-ends of their rifles. They 
then turned out the pockets of the dead and stripped ofif some of their 
clothes. 

At Bueken the massacre took place long after that hamlet had been 
occupied by the German troops. They had been staying there for ten 
days, and the panic-stricken inhabitants had been doing their best to 
keep them in good temper by every possible means. On Aug. 29 the 
men were all arrested and led to a meadow, with their hands tied behind 
their backs. Then, according to the evidence of the witness who de- 
scribed the scene, eighteen men were shot, including an old man of 70 
and his three sons. They were executed in the presence of their wives 
and children. 

The women, in the hope of saving the lives of their husbands, tried 
to call out, "Long live Germany and the Kaiser !" When the massacre 
was over, the women and children were shut up in a small room, so 
small that no one could lie down. These poor folks were confined there 
for two days, and given neither food nor drink. Meanwhile the village 
was entirely destroyed. 

Arson and pillage, it is added, always accompanied these massacres. 
Everything seemed to be done systematically — the arrest of the inhabi- 
tants seems to have been very often a preliminary to the complete sack 
of their houses, and their subsequent destruction and burning. Some 
witnesses, however, have reported cases where houses still inhabited 
were set on fire, and where charred corpses were found in the ruins. 
The pillage seems to have been more or less complete, and the devas- 
tation more or less violent, according as the soldiery were more or less 
intoxicated. Their officers thought it no harm to set the example of 
drunkenness. 

20 



Lord Bryce's Commission. 

Then there is the official report of the English Commission which 
has special interest for Americans because Viscount Bryce was the 
President. This report had not been presented at the time "The Hun's 
Diary" was sent to press, but I am able to state on the authority of the 
London correspondent of "The New York Times" that in the opinion 
of Lord Bryce and the other members of the British Commission who 
were appointed to investigate the charges of atrocities, the evidence 
obtained of the guilt of the German military system is considered "la- 
mentably and appallingly convincing." 

As to the ruthlessness of the methods employed by the German 
military organization in its conduct of the war, the findings of the 
British commission are emphatic, and so far as the German nation is 
responsible for the system which created these horrors, it must, in the 
opinion of Lord Bryce and his colleagues, be held guilty. 

The evidence upon which the commissioners chiefly based their 
conclusions is evidence obtained from German sources of information, 
and the report, when issued, is calculated to niake a great impression. 



21 



IV.— THE HUN'S OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK. 

It is my firm belief that the Teuton is by nature and instinct not less 
refined and gentle than the peoples of other civilized nations. If he has 
fallen from the path of grace in latter years it is because he has been 
blinded by the military ambition of his rulers and the false prophets 
who, from kindergarten to University, have crammed him with teach- 
ings based upon false and meretricious philosophy. From the cradle to 
the grave he has been lured by false ideals of state, by the phantoms of 
military ascendency and by the dreams of a Pan-Germanism which 
should dominate the globe. In Germany the People and the Army are 
to a great extent interchangeable terms and the amazing way in which 
the nation has from the standpoint of morals deteriorated since 1870, 
as proved by the crimes of the soldiers in the field, which have failed 
so far to elicit the censure of their people at home, is mainly due to these 
false teachers and the military caste and practice for which these teach- 
ers have provided the foundation. Both are jointly and separately re- 
sponsible. The Supremacy of the State, the Religion of Personal Valor, 
Mediaeval ideas of the Crown, the "World Mission" of the German 
peoples, the mysticism and preposterous claims of the Kaiser in all 
that relates to his position, prerogatives and rights — all these things 
have loomed so largely in the daily life of the nation that a people 
naturally virtuous in their domestic life and in many things a pattern 
to the world, have for a time lost their mental balance. No people 
normally sane would have been willing to risk all in a single throw of 
the dice, and yet Bernhardi, in outlining the prospect of the present 
war, declared frankly it was a case of "World-power or Downfall" 
("Weldmacht oder niedergang") — "neck or nothing," as we say in 
America. 

It is not an entire people that we can indict in the first instance 
for^ the "whole Gospel of Frightfulness," as illustrated in the preceding- 
pages and corroborated times without number by the ofificial reports of 
Belgian and French Commissions of Enquiry, but the responsible rulers 
including the German General Stafif. To think otherwise would be to 
libel a great nation whose role in the scheme of civilization still offers 
a most brilliant vista of possibility and conjecture. By their Professors 
and Teachers ye shall know them and by that same token I direct the 
special attention of American readers to "The German War Book," a 
work of the most singular interest at the present time because it teaches 
the world what to expect from the German Army. It is a translation 
of "The Usages of War," a handbook issued by the German General 
Staff for the guidance of German officers, with a critical introduction 
by Professor J. H. Morgan. It may be described as the Hun's com- 
plete guide or the official statement of the gospel of "frightfulness." 

The spirit which pervades it is that of Clough's famous lines: 
, Thou shalt not kill ; but need'st not strive 

Officiously to keep alive, 
though it does not scruple to lay down the most atrocious doctrines 

' 22 



and to support them with citations from obsequious German professors. 

Thus it begins with banning the use of poison, assassination, the kilHng 

of prisoners, but qualifies its prohibition in the most remarkable manner : 

International law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of 

the crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery 

and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy. 

So that you may not poison or assassinate members of the enemy's 
forces yourself, but you may pay third parties to do so. And to ease 
any qualms of sentimentality the German officers are reminded that : 

Considerations of chivalry, generosity and honor may de- 
nounce in such cases a hasty and unsparing exploitation of suet 
advantages as indecent and dishonorable, but law which is less 
touchy allows it. "The ugly and inherently immoral aspect of 
such methods cannot affect the recognition of their lawfulness. 
The necessary aim of war gives the belligerent the right and im- 
poses upon him, according to circumstances, the duty not to let 
slip the important, it may be decisive, advantages to be gained by 
such means." — (Professor Liider.) 
So prisoners may be murdered : 

In case of overwhelming necessity, when other means of pre- 
caution do not exist and the existence of prisoners becomes a danger 
to one's own existence. 

Professor Morgan's biting remark is justified that the War Book, 
"when it inculcates frightfulness is never obscure, and when it advises 
forbearance is always ambiguous." Thus the duty of terrorizing the 
civil population is stated in these uncompromising terms : 

A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely 
against the combatants of the enemy State and the positions they 
occupy, but it will, and must in like manner, seek to destroy the 
total intellectual and material resources of the latter. Humani- 
tarian claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can 
only be taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object 
of the war permit. 

It is true, the German General Staff proceed, that chivalry. Chris- 
tian thought, higher civilization, and recognition of one's own advantage 
have led to attempts to modify the severity of war hy creating a codex 
belli, a law of war. But — thej usual qualification : 

All these attempts have hitherto, with some few exceptions to 
be mentioned later, completely failed If, therefore, the ex- 
pression "the law of war" is used, it must be understood that by 
it is meant not a lex scripta introduced by international agreements 
'but only a limitation of arbitrary behavior which cus- 
tom and convention, human friendliness, and a calculating egotism 
have erected, but for the observance of which there exists no express 
sanction, but only "the fear of reprisals" decides. That is to say, 
the German officer may order what crimes he likes to be committed 
upon non-combatants, women and children, or prisoners, provided 
only he is fairly sure that there will not be retaliation. 
Moreover, it is his duty to be inhumane. The efforts of the nine- 
teenth century, as in the Geneva and Hague Conventions, to prevent 
unnecessary cruelty, are denounced as "sentimentality and flabby emo- 
tion." The officer must be on his guard against such weakness. He is 

23 



a child of the times, and as such liable to be corrupted by sentiment: 

The danger that in this way he will arrive at false views about 
the essential character of war must not be lost sight of. The dan- 
ger can only be met by a thorough study of war itself. By steeping 
himself in military history an officer will be able to guard himself 
against excessive humanitarian notions, it will teach him that 
certain severities are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the onlj 
true humanity very often lies in a ruthless application of them. 
Yet out of their own mouths the Germans are condemned. One 
"law of perfect obligation" which this treatise does admit is the duty 
of observing the inviolability of neutral States : 

The belligerent States have to respect the inviolability of the 
neutral and the undisturbed exercise of its sovereignty in its home 
affairs, to abstain from any attack upon the same even if the 
necessity of war should make such an attack desirable. 
The invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium is proclaimed unpardon- 
able even by the cynics who compiled this handbook of treachery. 
Further than this, the German Staff declare that the neutral State not 
only may, but must, forbid the passage of troops through its country, 
and thus make nonsense of the diatribes against Belgium which fill 
the German Press and are being scattered broadcast through neutral 
countries. 

Again, dealing with the offenses committed by the German armies 
in Belgium, we have the following unexceptionable passage : 

Movable property, which in earlier times was the incontestable 
booty of the victor, is held by modern opinion to be inviolable. 
The carrying away of gold, watches, rings, trinkets, or other ob- 
jects of value is therefore to be regarded as robbery, and correspond- 
ingly punishable. No plundering but downright burglary is it 
for a man to take away things out of an unoccupied house or at 
a time when the occupant happens to be absent. 
Any form of violence may be applied to the non-combatant popu- 
lation so as to "smash their spiritual and material life." They may be 
compelled "to furnish information about their own Army, its strategy, 
its resources, and its military secrets. The majority of writers of all 
nations are unanimous in their condemnation of this measure. Never- 
theless it cannot be entirely dispensed with ; doubtless it will be applied 
with regret, but the argument of war .will frequently make it necessary." 
Applied it has been by the Germans in this war, in some cases with 
the tortures of the Inquisition, to compel brave men and women to 
betray their motherland. 

Again, though public opinion and, as the German Staff should have 
added, the Hague Convention signed by the German diplomatists forbid 
the taking of hostages and their execution for the real or alleged offences 
of others, this 

was the only method which promised to be effective against the 

doubtless unauthorized, indeed the criminal, behavior of a fanatical 

population. Herein lies its justification under the laws of war, but 

still more in the fact that it proved completely successful. 

War, then, as the Germans and their leaders know it, is restrained 

and governed by no laws, no sentiment, no religious feeling, not love for 

suffering and heroic man. It is, to quote Professor Morgan, whose 

24 



critical introduction to "The Usages of War" — The German War Book — 
should be made available to American readers in this crisis, an orgy of 
calculating, undeviating cruelty, the only limitation on which is the 
fear that the enemy may retort in kind. The Germans in this century 
have retrograded deplorably and betrayed civilization. They have gone 
back to the savagery of the Thirty Years' War. 

"Practice follows precept." "Like Master like man." The gallant 
German diarists from whom I have quoted so freely have at least some 
excuse to offer for their crimes — the soldier's law which enjoins 
obedience and bans argument. In the military library of France — ■ 
"France, the Mother of Arts, laws and armies" — the Hun's Handbook 
is catalogued, but on the fly leaf there is a note which directs the 
student to read the rules and refrain from their practice. 



25 



V. — The War was Premeditated, 

The immediate cause of the war was Austria's insolent note to 
Servia, backed by Germany. The predisposing- cause of the war was 
Germany's ambition to "secure a place in the sun" — "world-power or 
downfall." During the last decade, at least, every chancellery in Europe 
has known that Germany was preparing to attack England. A prelim- 
inary war with France was a mere incidental but not the final object. 
To secure "weldmach" England must be conquered and her possessions 
taken. That the scheme to subdue France 'first and separately went 
astray and that England was from the first found aligned on the side of 
France and Russia was one of the extraordinary miscalculations com- 
mitted by Germany, 

In German messes, naval and military, the toast of the "Tag", — 
the day for war against England- — has been drunk for at least 16 years. 
Naval and military men in Germany have spoken of nothing else. In 
September, 1901, I was present as a guest of the General Staff of the 
German Army at the Kaiser Manoeuvres in East Prussia. It may 
be recalled, perhaps, that special interest attached to these manoeuvres 
because of the presence of the Kaiser and the Czar. From the time I 
left Berlin until I entrained at Dantzig for home all the talk was of 
the coming fight with England. On this occasion one heard most of 
the German Navy whose plans for aggrandizement were then taking 
shape. The English people alone refused to take the idea seriously, 
and in a military sense, at least, they made no preparation. The Navy, 
it is true, was kept, as usual, at the highest degree of efficiency. It is 
necessary to emphasize that Germany deliberately, carefully and con- 
tinuously prepared for war with the object, when the hour of destiny 
sounded, to strike hard and victoriously for world-power in order to 
determine the nature of the guilt of the conspirators and later to ap- 
portion the punishment to the crime. A man who murders in the heat 
of passion and without premeditation is less culpable before the law than 
the man who, with malice aforethought, kills in cold blood. 

The responsibility of the Kaiser has been, from the first, a vexed 
question which will not be discussed here. It is certain, however, that 
many of his public speeches with the exalted references to Divine Power, 
Shining Armor, the Archangel Michael's Sword, the great Elector's 
Spirit, My Grandfather's Immortal and Invincible Memory, the Future 
of My Kingdom is upon the Sea, the Mailed Fist, God and me — one 
might say all the spread eagle, "Deutschland over all" series of ora- 
tion — though doubtless only symbolical in some instances, were no1 
in their general essence either designed or intended to allay the unrest 
and quieten the suspicions of Europe. 

The most remarkable speech by the Kaiser is that reported to have 
been made at a secret council meeting in Potsdam in June, 1908 — please 
note the date as seven years ago — at which the German Emperor an- 
nounced his decision to go to war. 

26 



The Kaiser began by declaring : 

"After long hours of fervent prayer, light has at last come to 
me. The outlook is, I admit, dark, but we need not despair, for 
God, our great ally, has given into our hands the means of saving 
our empire from the dangers vv^hich are threatening its happiness 
and welfare. 

"You know what I mean. It is that wonderful invention which 
his Excellency Count Zeppehn was enabled, through the grace of 
the Lord, to make for the safeguarding and glory of our beloved 
Fatherland. 

"In this invention God has placed the means at my disposal 
to lead Germany triumphantly out of her present difficulties and 
to make once and for all good the words of our poet, 'Deutschland, 
Deutschland iiber Alles.' 

"Yes, gentlemen, Germany over everything in the world ! The 
first power on earth, both in peace and war! That is, the peace 
which I have been ordained by God to conquer for her, and which 
I will conquer for her with the help of the Almighty." 

The Emperor then went on to unfold a scheme by which this 
end was to be accomplished. When sufficient large Zeppelins were 
built, England's North Sea, Channel, and Atlantic fleets would 
be destroyed, "after which nothing on earth can prevent the land- 
ing of our army on British soil and its triumphant march to Lon- 
don." Fast steamers belonging to the Hamburg-American and 
North German Lloyd lines would be relied on for the transport of 
the invading army. 

The war would be against Great Britain and France, said the 
Kaiser. Russia was suffering too much from the effects of her 
war with Japan to enter the conflict. 

The Emperor went on to speak of the United States as a 
country, "where even now I rule supreme, where almost half the 
population is either of German birth or German descent, and where 
3,000,000 German voters do my bidding at the Presidential elec- 
tions." That country would next be taught a lesson. German 
power would be supreme in South America and South Africa, and, 
among other things, the German flag would "wave over the holy 
shrines of Jerusalem." 
Time will show ! 




21. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 




